Sixty-Two
小过 :: Small Steps :: Thunder / Mountain
Channelled Mandala for Hexagram 62 of the I-Ching
The elementals here are Thunder above the Mountain, giving the impression of having a mountain scene, let’s say it’s evening time for dramatic effect, and lightning and thunder flashes from above, the lightning providing temporary extra brightness to light the way for the wayward traveller making his descent to safer grounds through uneven ground. For a touch of drama, perhaps the storm rolls in, not strong enough to fall trees, but branches can be broken off and blown away, the trail path is washed away, and there are leaves and stems everywhere.
It is not an easy endeavour; the path is fraught with dangers. Even a more experienced hiker will need to be extra vigilant, take smaller steps, find a walking stick to stablise himself, and avoid slipping where the ground is wet. It is not an impossible task, but this journey will take longer than planned, and the traveller will be prudent to take fewer risks and make a string of safe choices along the way. In the scenario in my mind, the rumbling of the thunder above is echoed in the different formations of the mountain, distorting the sound and possibly causing the traveller to be more disorientated by all the extra sensory input from his environment. It reminds me of the idiom 三思而后行, which translates to think thrice before you make your move.
This is the cautionary energy of Hexagram 62 - Better to take small steps than big leaps. 小过 translates literally to "small errors" - perhaps the best way of framing this is the understanding of having a small margin of error. And so the advice of this gateway is a reminder against overzealousness or over-extending oneself or overdoing something despite one’s best intentions. Given the circumstances, it is better at this time to be merticulous, to cross your T's and dot your I’s, to watch out for things that may trip you up, and take small steps forwards giving yourself space for recourse, because small mistakes are less consequential and easier to fix should things go wrong.
"This gua displays the principle of weighing the pros and cons of excess and insufficiency. Generally, insufficiency is better than excess. For instance, undereating is better than overeating. When traffic laws limit the speed to fifty-five miles per hour and if one drives forty miles per hour, he loses only his time. If he exceeds the speed limit, he might have an accident or get a ticket.
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In Chinese, the exact meaning of excess is going beyond the middle way. It violates the Doctrine of the Golden Mean. Small exceeding is a time of transition. During transition, insufficiency is better than excess. Little affairs may be accomplished, but not great affairs. During King Wen’s sitting in stillness he had the insight that after people gained inner sincerity and trustworthiness they tended to overdo things. Experience told him that great exceeding made a ridgepole sag. He realized that insufficiency was better than excess.
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One needed to be steadfast and upright to accomplish little affairs; then little affairs would accumulate and become great. A flying bird cannot fly all the time. It is proper to descend at times. The Duke of Zhou gives warning that if one soars too high, like a bird, it will bring misfortune. When meeting someone, one must be on guard to the danger of going too far. If one does not exercise self-restraint, the misfortune will be of one’s own doing."
-The Complete I Ching, Taoist Master Alfred Huang
Alfred Huang terms this hexagram “Little Exceeding”, while Blofeld translates it as “The Small Get By”. In The Oracle, Benebell Wen uses “Pay Attention To The Details”.
This is one of those gates there is less consistency of the keywords used because of the nuance of translating the Chinese title, and so I’ll leave you slightly longer passages from the few reference books, so you can get a sense of what they were trying to express, and come to a conclusion of what this hexgram means for you personally.
"There is thunder atop the mountain: inciting small movements but keeping the greater matter at rest. Maintain stability in the wider foundation, but pay attention to the details and initiate small changes toward progress.
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In the opening lines, Hexagram 62 warns not to be overly ambitious in trying to overpower Heaven’s Will and nature. The short-term gains yielded from such ambition will be eclipsed by the long-term disasters that ensue.
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Great prosperity and fortune if you heed the message.
It is not a time for expanding; it is a time for refining.
The sage is humbler than the humble, expressing "more heartfelt sorrow than the sorrowful, and is more frugal than the frugal....
There will be fruition if you persevere through your endeavor, but undertake it one small step by one small step."- I Ching, the Oracle, Benebell Wen
Despite the variance in translation, the advice from The Oracle is concise and clear, and is what i might lean on for meditation or divination:
"Do everything there is to do a little bit better than everybody else. Pay attention to the details, and in that way you shall achieve success. The timing for your intentions is not right at the moment. It is still premature for you to take action. Initiate small changes toward your goal. Do not petition for a dramatic change or instant results. Advance up the ladder one rung at a time. Great prosperity if you heed the message."
- I Ching, the Oracle, Benebell Wen
Entitled “Preponderance of the Small” (in line with the Wilhelm translation), The Rave I-Ching possibly has one of the most understandable descriptions for this Hexagram - “Caution, patience, and detail produce excellence out of limitation.”
Termed The Gate of Detail, Ra says the 62nd Gate is “manifestation through detail”, as this is where all things are expressed through this Throat Chakra gate, giving a name (word, description, label) to all things and hence making them manifest in the world. While this is a method of organising and sharing the human experience, it is also worth considering that the fixing of names is the foundation of the Maya.
The Gene Keys takes this gate in a different direction, giving it a poetic title "The Language of Light”, expanding the manifesting powers of the throat chakra placement to focus on the nature of its Creation instead, shifting away from the illusion of separation via differentiation, and toward the understanding that all things are an emanation of the pure light.
"The 62nd Gene Key contains layer upon layer of coded information about the meaning and purpose of the cosmos. Behind its inner door, the 62nd Gene Key reveals what the Gene Keys themselves are and what they are for. They are the living language of light that lies at the foundation of the universe. The 64-bit matrix is the core structural principle behind all art, science and natural phenomena. All human languages and vocabularies have emerged out of this primary alphabet of consciousness.
At the deepest level the 62nd Gene Key teaches you the holographic language of creation. Once you have learned this inner language you will see it repeated in fractal form over and over again in everything your awareness touches. It is precise and infinitely complex, and yet it is elegantly simple to learn, formed as it is from only six possible permutations of each of the 64 Gene Keys.”
- Gene Keys, Richard Rudd
It is said that the 62nd Siddhi appears to be highly intellectual and hence may appeal more to men, think sages like Socrates and Plato, and the great philosophers like Epictetus and Aurelius. Yet this is where the shift from shadow to Siddhi is understanding the difference between Mercury and Jupiter. This analytical expression of a body of information can be very Mercurial, yet the intellect can defeat itself through (the sequences and details of) pure logic. The Philosophers, though, have a knack for using very few words to convey a concept that may take ages to unravel, like Pythagarus with an elegant equation, or Epictetus, who said, "Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
This aligns beautifully to how the Buddha taught with little emphasis on words, warning against disciples taking his teachings too literally and misunderstanding and misconstruing his words. In the famous Flower Sermon, he was said to have given a wordless lecture by holding up a single white lotus, and thus marked the beginning of 禅 Chan (the sanskrit word for Meditation) or Zen Buddhism. And hence perhaps the Siddhi of the 62nd Gate lies not with more words by the individual, but less, because one recognises the "Divine Cosmometry” flows and expresses itself through one’s entire being. Rudd sites that “The real difference between the Siddhi and the Shadow is the complete absence of fear - which is the absence of self-identification.”
"Many people may be surprised to see the word intellect represented as one of the 64 Shadows. The language of the Gene Keys holds true at all levels of frequency, and unlike human languages it is not a language that can be learned and mastered via the intellect alone. To master the language of creation we have to embody it fully at every level, not just the intellectual level. However, in the modern world intellect is generally regarded as a sought-after and admired human gift rather than as something that might actually hamper human evolution! Therefore, it is important to clarify some terminology. Intellect is most often confused with intelligence and understanding. In the context of the Gene Keys intellect refers to the thinking capacity of the human mind, which bases all its suppositions on its two main objectives — the acquisition of facts, and the skill of manipulating those facts via language.
Intellect is the skill of manipulating knowledge, but knowledge is quite different from understanding. Understanding in this sense does not simply refer to the activities of the mind but to the whole experiential being. You can be a dunce at the intellectual level, but can still understand many profound truths within the heart of your being. Likewise, intelligence has nothing to do with intellect. In fact, these two attributes are often (though not always) diametrically opposed to each other. Generally speaking, the more intellectual you are, the less intelligence you use. In the context of the Gene Key language, intelligence is something that occurs without the use of the mind, although intelligence may also use the mind as a means to transmit itself.”
- Gene Keys, Richard Rudd
A quick snapshot of the description of the hexagram from various sources:
The Oracle: Pay Attention to the Details
The Rave I-Ching, Human Design: The Gate of Beginnings :: Development as a structured progression that is both steadfast and organic
Book of Lines: Expressed Details :: Clarification - Much ado about anything as you express and define details that are of value to the present and the future
Gene Keys: Intellect | Precision | Impeccability
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i so appreciate your presence, for taking this walk around the I-Ching wheel together. Thank you for being here.